These days, we all can spell heartburn

Back when I was young and innocent – when I was 49 – I used to chortle at all of those ads for heartburn.

I would point merrily at some TV sap having a Chinese food attack. Then I would crow, “Man, from the number of stupid remedies, you’d think that everybody on earth has heartburn. I mean, is heartburn really Public Health Problem No. 1? And what is heartburn, anyway? Some kind of stomachache? I don’t even know!”

Do not, I implore you, tempt the fates in this careless manner.

Now, of course, I am afflicted with heartburn, or to put it in even more disgusting medical terms, acid reflux. I know exactly why there are so many remedies for it – because we need them. Heartburn is a genuine pain in the sternum and it can drive a person crazy – unless you remember to have one of those 189 different remedies handy.

Sometimes, of course, I don’t. On two different occasions, in hotels on entirely different coasts, I have stumbled red-eyed down to the lobby at 3 a.m., desperately in search of a vending machine that might have Zantac or Tagamet or Prilosec or Prevacid or Protonix or Nexium or Mylanta or Pepcid – or even Tums or Rolaids, for crying out loud – only to discover nothing but Cokes and Doritos, which, trust me, don’t help.

On both occasions, I wandered the streets of a strange downtown seeking a 24-hour drugstore. Yeah, I know, I might have gotten mugged. I didn’t care. I needed relief, which is spelled R-O-L-A – oh, forget it.

I was caught without my prescription heartburn remedy, a generic called omeprazole, not because I am stupid, or at least not just because I am stupid. It was because my heartburn – or to put it in even more disgusting medical terms, my gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) – is mild. I can go months without suffering a bout, which means that I usually forget to bring my medicine on trips. And, of course, it always strikes when I’m on a trip, because that’s when I’m out of my normal routine and eating too much jambalaya or soft-shelled crabs or rigatoni con pepperoni.

Heartburn is not, however, some kind of stomachache. It’s more like a chest ache. The corrosive digestive acids in your stomach geyser upwards, like Old Faithful. Some of them make it all the way to your esophagus due to a less-than-perfect valve apparatus. It feels like you’ve tossed back a shot of battery acid. Your chest, right under your breastbone, feels on fire and aches so badly that many people call 911 under the impression they are having a heart attack.

Ever since I had my first bout a few years ago, I have discovered that yes, everybody on earth does have heartburn. That may be slightly overstated, but all I can say is that if I am in a room with 10 people and I casually say, “Hey, does anybody have a Pepcid or something?” about six people will immediately start rummaging through their purses and briefcases.

Of course, my peers and I have entered the prime heartburn demographic. Your gorge tends to rise as you get older. However, I have had perfectly earnest 20-minute conversations with friends in their 20s and 30s about the relative merits of antacids vs. histamine receptor antagonists vs. proton pump inhibitors.

It’s no surprise that my deadline-driven office stocks a fat barrel of Tums in our first-aid drawer. People are constantly running in and gobbling a few. Heartburn tends to be a stress-related ailment that rises up when people are agitated or anxious, by which I mean, at work.

So maybe it was inevitable that I would eventually turn into that TV sap in the Chinese restaurant. Still, I can’t emphasize enough the importance of not chortling at heartburn ads.

And for heaven’s sake, don’t do what I did in college and name your amateur bluegrass band The Rising Gorge String Band.

We thought it was funny. Oh, God, our fates were sealed.